"The GTS 450 is NVIDIA’s lowest price Fermi graphics card to-date and is focused directly at gamers with a tight budget that play games at lower resolutions. This could make the GTS 450 an ideal solution for anyone looking to play current games on a 19"-22" monitor that supports resolutions up to 1280x1024, 1440x900, and 1680x1050. This is not to say the graphics card is limited to these settings, but according to NVIDIA these are the sweet spots and when used at these resolutions it should guarantee a smooth gaming experience across the board. Also, since the large majority of gamers are playing on monitors that do not exceed the target resolutions, the GTS 450 is a graphics card that could have a very wide appeal."

AMD's launch of the AM3 platform is an interesting one from many angles. For the new computer owner the move to DDR3 memory is pretty clear as fewer and fewer motherboards with DDR2 memory support are hitting the market today compared to a year or two ago. DDR3 memory on the AMD platform requires AM3 CPUs. The extra memory resulted in increased performance in 3DMark Vantage and 06 over a slower AMD Phenom II X4 940 using DDR2 memory. MSI has put together a solid package in the form of the MSI 790GX-G65 motherboard, with good features, excellent bundle and very decent overclocking the MSI board is an easy choice over some of the other 790GX boards with support for DDR3.